George John Douglas Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll was a Liberal politician and natural historian. He wrote on a diverse range of subjects, from ornithology to geology.

Argyll was one of the scientific figures opposed to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. While not opposed to evolution in general, Argyll believed that there may have been several creations and that life on earth had evolved according to a ‘plan’ designed by God.

This book lays out his theory of the origins of mankind. In Primeval Man, Argyll argued that humans had been specially created by God, separate to animals and plants and over generations had degenerated (rather than evolved) from the original ‘single pair’. He believed that there was no palaeontological evidence to show that humans had evolved from apes, as had been surmised by Darwin.

These theories have since been disproven but they were influential in the debates surrounding evolution in the middle of the nineteenth century.